Conventional weather sealing strips are generally extruded and separate retainer clips are used for attaching the extruded weather sealing strips to the periphery of a vehicle window opening. The retaining clips are usually designed so that they can be mounted onto the periphery of the window opening by inserting a portion of the retaining clip into an aperture or slot pierced into the sheet metal defining the window opening. The prior art retainer clips are usually made of a springy, resilient material having separate deformable means for securely retaining a weather sealing strip and for locking the retainer clips into the openings provided in the sheet metal defining the window opening. Conventional extruded sealing strips which are attached to the window opening with separate retainer clips have the disadvantages of requiring the manufacturing, procurement, inventorying and assembly of a plurality of separate components. Another disadvantage with extruded sealing strips is that they generally require additional detail such as end caps which are generally used to cover the exposed ends of an extruded sealing strip to provide for better aesthetics.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,719,343 to Harris, U.S. Pat. No. 2,787,033 to Peckham et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 3,167,826 to Watzl, each relate to automotive weather sealing assemblies having metal wire fastening means which are partially embedded within a flexible sealing strip and with a portion of the metal fastening means protruding outwardly from the sealing strip. Each protruding portion of the fastening means is shaped such that it can be pressed through a hole in a vehicle door frame to fasten the weather strip to the door frame. While the aforementioned patents disclose weather sealing strips having integral retaining means thereby overcoming some of the disadvantages associated with conventional extruded weather sealing strips which are fastened to the window opening with separate retainer clips, they have associated therewith a more difficult fabrication process: first, the separate fabrication of the metal fastening means, and then the incorporation of the metal fastening means into a finished weather sealing strip having integral fastening means. This is achieved either by a complicated coextrusion process or by appropriately positioning the retaining means in a mold cavity and then molding the sealing strip over the retaining means. In either case, the previously disclosed weather sealing strips having metal retaining means embedded therein require a fairly complicated, multi-step fabrication process which is relatively expensive due to the required equipment, labor, or combination thereof.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,139,784 to Moorman, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,218,680 to Deal et al., each relate to sealing strips having plastic, stud-like fasteners embedded therein. These sealing strips require separately formed fasteners which are subsequently embedded in the sealing strip and, therefore, have associated therewith substantially the same disadvantages encountered with the sealing strips having metal wire fastening means partially embedded therein. Specifically, the sealing strips having plastic, stud-like fasteners require separate fabrication operations for the sealing strip and the stud-like fasteners, followed by an assembly operation for embedding the stud-like fasteners into the sealing strip. The manufacture of such fasteners therefore requires a relatively complicated multiple-step process which is relatively expensive because of the amount of equipment and labor required.